The U.S. Department of Defense released its first-ever National Security Space Strategy (NSSS), on Feb. 4. The document "seeks to maintain and enhance the national security benefits" the United States derives from its activities and capabilities in space. This week, Gregory Schulte, deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, explained the new policy in an essay for Foreign Policy. Schulte described the benefits the United States receives from a wide variety of surveillance, communications, and navigation satellites. He also noted the increasing competition among a growing number of players who are seeking their own advantageous positions in orbit. Schulte explained some clever diplomatic and soft-power strategies that U.S. officials hope will protect the country's space interests, along with some hedges in case the soft-power strategies fail. However, growing those hedges could get very expensive for the Pentagon.

Of greatest worry to the Pentagon is the vulnerability of its satellites to attack. In 2007, China shot down one of its old weather satellites with a direct-ascent missile, demonstrating its ability to threaten the space systems on which U.S. military forces depend. In addition to missile attack, many commercial and Defense Department satellites are also vulnerable to directed energy (laser) attack and to electronic jamming. U.S. adversaries may view attacks on U.S. satellites as a high-payoff/low-risk strategy. By attacking U.S. satellites, an adversary could hobble U.S. military forces without the usual indications of warfare, at least in the public's perception. For example, without any images of explosions, burning buildings, or wounded civilians, U.S. policymakers might find it difficult to generate political and diplomatic support for a military response.

I own an old book from about 1982, compiled by the FAS or some other scientists organisation (didn't see the book in a while). The chapter on EMP from 1982 mentioned that 4 500 kt (or was it 1 Mt?) warheads exploding in a patter over the U.S. at hundreds of kilometres altitude would have a good, but not at all all-frying effect on electronics.
It was a secondary concern when the USSR had thousands of nukes and operational SSBNs. It's a ridiculous concern now.

Well, the article at the BBC was written by someone with only a little knowledge of nuclear weapons, Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) or Coronal Mass Ejections (CME). It pretty much reduces to "something bad could happen and somebody ought to do something about it." (Which is typical of FAS scaremongering.)

That said ...

Nuclear weapons could be used to generate a High-altitude Electro-Magnetic Pulse (HEMP) that would destroy or degrade a lot of electrical and electronic systems. How much and how widespread depends on the design and installation of the electrical/electronic device/system and the structure of the attack. The kind of damage the good MP is concerned about would take a pretty sophisticated attack. The yields and launch systems required rule out all but the US, Russia, and China. (Possibly the UK and France could be included.) The idea that a rogue state, such as N. Korea or Iran, could do that is ... bizarre.

CME is a serious threat, largely because the standard approaches to protecting electrical systems from everyday events, such as surges and lightening strikes, would be turned into a vulnerability. However, with sufficient warning, which we would have, the damage can be minimized by simply shutting down the power grid for a few to tens of hours. (Look up the Carrington Event, which was a CME striking the Earth.)

Space, once seen as the benign final frontier, has evolved into a crowded potential battleground that the U.S. must defend as conflicts extend beyond Earth, according to the Air Force’s top military space official.

While officials once aspired to treat space as a peaceful refuge from the strife on Earth, it’s now “congested, contested and competitive”-- and “all three of those trends are trending upward,” General John W. “Jay” Raymond, the head of the Air Force Space Command, said in an interview Monday at Bloomberg headquarters in New York.

From jamming and cyber attacks to “kinetic destruction,” there’s a “full range of threats” to U.S. early warning, Global Positioning System and communications satellites, Raymond said. Those threats come from economic and military rivals like China and Russia and include the increasing accumulation of debris orbiting the planet.

Because we need to be thinking in three dimensions, a stand-alone post until it's not.

Rhetorical question: incompetence or shenanigans?

Quote:

A U.S. spy satellite that was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a SpaceX rocket on Sunday failed to reach orbit and is assumed to be a total loss, two U.S. officials briefed on the mission said on Monday.
The classified intelligence satellite, built by Northrop Grumman Corp, failed to separate from the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket and is assumed to have broken up or plunged into the sea, said the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The satellite is assumed to be "a write-off," one of the officials said.
The presumed loss of the satellite was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Russia and China could soon possess "destructive" space weapons that could be used against the U.S., according to American intelligence agencies.
The two United Nations Security Council members are pursuing such "anti-satellite weapons as a means to reduce U.S. and allied military effectiveness," the report said.